I would think that radicalization is more likely caused by the center being more and more obviously fascist or corporatist or anti-people or whatever term you prefer.
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Have you read Potkin's Stalin diary? His theory is the October Revolution succeeded, where all prior attempts had failed, because Emperial Russia's elites couldn't be bothered to bolster the ruling regime, yet again. Potkin further says this is how all successful revolutions play out.
Are you referring to something like that?
Potkin completely changed my view of the "reactionary centrists", like the NY Times. The Village, the Beltway, whatever our elites are called. For whatever reason, they no longer give a shit about democracy, neoliberalism (much less all social progress since woman's suffrage), and the "maritime order" of the post-WWII America hegomony.
So much so, the reactionaries (Heritage, Federalist Society, etc) are orchestrating another Constitutional Convention. The goal is to lock-in their world view.
For better or worse. And now we'll find out.
"Nobody want's to rewrite our Constitution! That's absurd!"
I know I sound "shrill" and alarmist and nutty. Simply restating outloud what reactionaries themselves claim are their end goals makes one sound insane.
Thanks for reading. Also, I'm keen to hear other people's hot takes.
I get a sense that we are beginning to see a resurgence in lone-wolf style operator activism and crime (or terrorism, etc., depending on your view of things), sort of like was more common 30+ years ago, a la the Unibomber, Skyjacker, all of the serial killers in the 60-80s.
The reasons of “why now” and “why lone wolf” are complicated but mostly boil down to high availability of information (awareness of opsec) and relatively low trust amongst social groups and of institutions, coupled with a more online and more destabilized male demographic the younger you go.